


Bucky's Feeling Horny

by Meatball42



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Animals, Any Day Bucky Isn’t Getting Electrocuted by Nazis Is a Great Fucking Day, Bittersweet, Five Years Later, Fluff, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 04:15:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20303311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42
Summary: Five years later, Bucky returns to his home in Wakanda. Many things have changed. Some things haven't.(The title is a joke but the fic is solemn, don't judge me)





	Bucky's Feeling Horny

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aurilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/gifts).

> This was supposed to be fluffy?? But then this happened??

Bucky hasn’t been back to his quiet hut for five years. In his mind, it’s only been a week or two, between two massive battles, two memorials for fallen Avengers, and Steve’s final mission. But it has been five years for the rest of the world, and that’s the reality he faces when he returns, Sam at his side, to an overgrown field.

The hut was closed years ago. His goats are gone. The garden he’d started is little more than an overgrown patch, more weeds and wild grasses than anything else.

But the mountains are the same, and the valley and the lake are the same. The trees did just fine without human interference.

Bucky goes into the hut and sits on the wide rim of the cooking pit. He snaps his fingers and it flares to life. He smiles, despite the tiredness that penetrates to his bones.

Sam, keeping watch outside out of habit, rather than any real need, shuffles his feet.

Bucky holds his hand over the heat from the pit. It still amazes him that he can feel it. He turns his hand over, feels the radiating warmth on the back of his hand, moves it closer and further away.

It has only been his for a week, in his mind, but it already feels natural, like it’s a part of him, in a way Hydra’s machine never was.

Shuri insisted that the arm was Bucky’s to take with him when he left Wakanda. To his surprise, T’Challa hadn’t argued. Back then, Bucky hadn’t wanted the arm. It took T’Challa coming to his hut, bringing tidings of war, for him to put it on.

Now, it’s something he can take with him when he leaves. Something that won’t change in a snap, won’t vanish before his eyes.

“Hey Barnes, what kind of wildlife do you normally have around here?”

There’s an edge in Sam’s voice. Bucky is on his feet and leaving the hut instantly.

They don’t have firearms. Aside from intergalactic combat, projectiles aren’t often allowed in Wakanda, and definitely not outsider projectile weapons. Sam has his wings and Bucky has Shuri’s arm. That’ll have to be enough to protect them from…

A rhinoceros, as tall as a human, is racing down the hill toward them at full speed. Sam turns on his wings and steps toward Bucky, arms wide, but Bucky has already started running.

“Toby!” he shouts.

“Toby?!” Sam echoes.

The rhinoceros makes a terrifying sound that echoes through the valley. Sam shouts something, probably about how Bucky has a death wish, but Bucky can’t hear him over the grin on his face.

When he and the rhino are just a few meters away, they each twist to the side, barely missing each other, and circle back around. Bucky gets slammed by the thick-skinned side of the rhino and barely keeps his feet. He doesn’t care, though, because in the next moment he’s hugging it around the neck.

“Toby!” he shouts joyfully.

The rhino tosses its head and trumpets. It pushes its head into Bucky, then gallops in a tight circle.

“Woah there,” Bucky laughs. “You gotta watch out for me now.”

He pats Toby’s face and the rhino pushes into his hand, letting out another excited moo. 

Sam touches down a few dozen feet away. He hangs back, wary, and Toby spins around to get a good look.

“Hey now, this is my friend,” Bucky says. He walks over to Sam and puts a hand on his shoulder to demonstrate.

Toby follows him, trotting up to inspect Sam.

“He’s tame, right?” Sam asks.

“He’s a battle rhino, of course he isn’t tame,” scoffs Bucky.

Sam gulps. “Yeah, but he’s friendly, right? You’re not gonna gore me, are you?” he says nervously to Toby.

Toby kicks the grass with his heavy hooves, and comes up alongside Bucky to nudge him with his head again.

“Okay, so we’re good?” Sam says dryly. “Thanks for the heads up,” he adds sarcastically. “And what kind of name is Toby for a battle rhinoceros?”

“The Border Tribe keeper in the village down the river named him N’Toba. But he answers to both.”

Toby let out a squeal when Bucky scratches a particularly good spot. Bucky puts some muscle into it and earns a drawn-out, happy coo.

“That’s really something, man,” Sam says. “I didn’t know you had an adorable killing machine for a pet.”

“[Last time I saw him he didn’t even have a horn.](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/media/images/66245000/jpg/_66245668_66245667.jpg)”

They both stare at the horn Toby’s sporting now, as long as Bucky’s forearm.

“It’s weird,” says Sam.

“Yeah.”

Bucky pets and scratches Toby for a while longer, and then Sam gets a turn. Toby is a sweetheart and warms up to Sam quickly, but he keeps trotting back to Bucky and nudging him affectionately, nearly to the ground. He takes a break to eat a few bites off a nearby bush.

“We should head out,” Sam tells Bucky, quietly. “We’re gonna get back after sunset at this rate.”

“Yeah.”

The sun has started going down. It’s still bright, but the sky is tinted red and orange and purple. The mountains are a rich, burnished gold. The trees look royal, painted in the deepening light.

In his long memory, Bucky can never remember somewhere as beautiful as Wakanda. Even though he knows it’s time to leave, it feels like some part of him will always be called back.

Toby gallops back over, begging for more pets. Bucky smiles, bittersweet, and grants the request.

“I have to go,” he says quietly. Toby’s ear twists around to him. Bucky swears he can see the intelligence in the big black eye that watches him steadily. “I… I’ll come back to see you. I hope.”

He puts his arms around Toby’s neck again and leans his weight on the rhino. Toby is so big and strong now, it doesn’t even faze him.

Toby takes a step, and it’s either let go or be dragged, so Bucky lets go. Toby wanders off back up the hill, toward the lands of the tribe he belongs to.

Bucky watches him go. Toby huffs and whines a little as he climbs the hill, and then he’s gone.

When Sam comes over, he’s kind enough to ignore the tears. “We’ll come back,” he says quietly. “I want to see how big he gets.”

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees, wiping his face. “We will.”

They walk back to their vehicle. As they drive away, Bucky watches his hut and garden disappear behind the trees. This time, he knows when he leaves that he can come back. That there’s something to come back to.

Sam turns on music and immediately starts making fun of Wakandan radio. They drive on.


End file.
